As I Lay Me Down
by Virtually Forgotten
Summary: She washes over him in rising frothy waves, pulling and dragging him down into her depths and he is the fool willing to drown in her every time. How much deeper could they fall in love? How much harder could they fall for each other? [post-699/pre-700] [naruhina] [one-shot]


_**A/N**_ _: So my first naruhina fic! I'm pretty excited. I haven't read any naruhina fics, honestly, so I'm not sure how the typical naruhina fic goes, but I guess that might be a good thing? Sorry for anyone who was expecting another sasusaku from me, I'm trying to work one up but I'm kind of having a…crisis, I guess, with that pairing. I still love it dearly, but…I dunno, I guess I'll just wait to see how it pans out in Gaiden. Also, wow, Naruto and Hinata's OST from the The Last is what dreams are made of._

 _ **Summary:**_ _She washes over him in rising frothy waves, pulling and dragging him down into her depths and he is the fool willing to drown in her every time. How much deeper could they fall in love? How much harder could they fall for each other? [post-699/pre-700] [naruhina] [one-shot]_

 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto. The lyrics at the beginning and end of this fic are translated lyrics of "Orange Jasmine" by Jay Chou._

* * *

~x~

 _Rain fell the entire night_

 _Your love overflows like rainwater_

 _The butterfly on the window sill flutters about_

 _Like the beautiful chapters of a poem_

~x~

* * *

The gentle scratching of graphite against paper fills the silence of the kitchen as Hinata sits at the kitchen table, penning down reflections of a day gone by and details on her ongoing first pregnancy. Sakura had suggested that she start a journal to document new symptoms, changes in mood, and the like and Hinata had found that it helped her navigate the tumultuous journey of pregnancy with more ease.

' _Recently, I have not noticed any new symptoms_ ,' she starts, the pencil scribbling across the page,' _but my morning sickness seems to have gotten better_. _I seem to only feel nauseous once a week or so.'_ She pauses, her face crinkling worriedly before she continues, " _but recently I've begun to feel anxious. I worry…can I be a good mother to the baby? Am I strong enough to protect it? Am I wise enough to raise it right? Lately, I've been plagued with thoughts like this…"_

"Hinata!" The distant cry of her husband interrupts her thoughts and she turns towards the direction of his voice. "I forgot to check if I had any clean pajamas!"

"I'll check," she calls back and chuckles at her husband's absent-mindedness, setting the pencil down and heading down the corridor. He yells out a curt "thanks!" as she passes the closed bathroom door and enters their bedroom.

Switching on the lights, Hinata pads softly into their room and pulls out a clean pair of folded pajamas from their dresser as she listens to the distant splash of water and the sound of her husband scrubbing away a hard day's work – and the accompanying grime. She unfolds each piece of Naruto's favorite baby blue pajamas and lays them neatly in order across the sheets, tenderly flattening out the wrinkles and creases.

"Naruto-kun, I've laid them out for you," she calls out as the running water screeches to a halt and smiles softly as Naruto hollers back another quick, "thanks Hinata!" before the door swings open and he steps in to join Hinata in the coolness of their room.

"Aaaah, that felt great!" He proclaims with his usual jubilance, stretching his arms upwards and arching backwards as he loosens his still taut muscles before reaching back to steady the wrapped towel sliding down his waist.

Hinata's face blazes bright red throughout the whole display and her crystal-clear eyes immediately focus on the wooden flooring just as Naruto begins peeling away the towel to get dressed. She overhears him chuckle amusedly at her antics and she sneaks a brief glance at him in response, her blush growing.

"What is it, Naruto-kun?" His pearly white grin widens at her as he slips into his pajama pants. "We've been married for a while now and you're still this embarrassed." He chuckles again. "It's cute-ttebayo."

Hinata couldn't help but grin sheepishly at his blunt remark but his smile manages to blast away most of her embarrassment. He was right. It had been months since they'd married and she'd begun to live with him in his apartment – although plans were in motion to get a larger place for their expanding family – and she still would often blush at sudden intimacy.

"I know," she admits, her voice soft as if afraid to wake up from a dream, "it's just…even now it all feels…so unreal and…"

Her eyes soften as she levels onto the gaze of her husband.

"I'm just so happy, Naruto-kun."

He freezes mid-dress and nods dumbly in agreement, stricken by the gentleness of her smile, and the depth of her beauty: the stars of her eyes glittering behind the canopy of her long raven locks and cheeks dusted pink with joy.

She washes over him in rising frothy waves, pulling and dragging him down into her depths and he is the fool willing to drown in her every time.

His sky blue eyes glisten in time with the rapid beating of his heart – he couldn't tell if it was embers of desire or Kurama smoldering in the pit of his stomach – and a sudden urge to embrace her overwhelms him. A feeling he has no qualms in indulging in.

Instantly, he closes the space between them and throws his damp arms around her, pulling her against his bare chest. At first she is surprised, the syllables of his name falling from her lips in broken stutters until finally, she quiets and relaxes into the warmth of his embrace. She inhales and a wave of the fresh scent of soap and shampoo mingled with a scent that is distinctly _him_ washes over her, intoxicating her with the desire for more of him _._ She wraps her arms around his torso and pulls in even closer, mesmerized by the steady timpani of his heartbeat matching the fluttering of her own.

How much deeper could they fall in love? How much harder could they fall for each other? Their love – she mused – was one that knew no bounds.

She is the first to pull away, the pearls of her eyes now quietly examining Naruto's unwrapped prosthetic arm.

"Let me go get the bandages," she offers and Naruto nods and responds with a soft "aa" as she gets to her feet and pads to the medicine cabinet in the adjacent bathroom. She steps over where Naruto had left a trail of wet footprints and opens the cabinet, searching for the roll of bandages. She can pick up the sound of Naruto resume dressing; the soft crinkle of fabric against skin, the scratchy shuffling of feet as he crosses their room to his side of the bed followed by a loud, trembling yawn and finally punctuated with a satisfied smacking of lips.

A burst of happiness overflows from the depth of Hinata's chest at his characteristics late night antics – ones that she imagined nobody else but her knew. Her smile – that she had been sure couldn't grow any wider – stretches further across her face and she cannot fathom how she can love him anymore than she already does but everyday he surprises her and she finds herself falling harder for the love of her youth.

She successfully pulls out the roll of bandages and returns to their room just in time to see her husband settle himself into his side of the bed. His sky blue eyes turn to look at her and she too is stunned by his beauty: from his glistening blonde locks, to the stretch and strain of the fabric against his muscles and finally the bright grin that he shoots in her direction – the grin that always manages to take her breath away.

He calls out her name, breaks her out of her reverie and fortunately, she remembers how to breathe again.

"S-sorry Naruto-kun." She sits at the edge of his side of the bed and peels the strip of bandages away from the core as he leans forward and extends his prosthetic right arm towards her. Her skillful hands proceed delicately, starting from the fingertips and wrapping each individual finger before continuing onto his palm. Then, she carefully maneuvers around his wrapped thumb before finally travelling up the length of his forearm. Naruto quietly – and sleepily – watches her proceed with her work, chancing a glance every now and then at the pearls of her eyes only to find her entirely focused on properly wrapping up his arm.

"I met with Kakashi-sensei today."

Hinata smiles softly, nodding in response as Naruto begins to share the events of his day. She always enjoyed this part of their nightly routine; sharing in his everyday joys, triumphs, sorrows and disappointments and growing closer to him.

"He told me he finally received word from Sasuke!" His voice is animated and bright as he mentions his best friend and she looks up long enough to see the crinkle in his eyes with his widening grin. "He told me Sasuke's doing fine and he's heading to Sunagakure to have talks with Gaara."

"With the Kazekage?" She returns her gaze to her work but feels him nod in response before answering. "Kakashi-sensei didn't tell me too much, just that it was more personal than business. But those two are pretty similar-ttebayo! They both know what it's like to," a pause, "to…"

His voice trails off and suddenly plunges into uncharacteristic silence. Hinata pauses her wrapping at the crook of his elbow and looks up at him, his sky blue eyes now overcast with clouds of tangible sadness.

There is a pregnant pause before she watches him unravel, the strength dissipating from his squared shoulders as the layers peel off of one-by-one and soon he is naked and raw before her and he draws near to her, his chest heaving and shaking with a weight too heavy for him to bare. His free arm wraps around her desperately as he seeks for the strength to hold himself together.

And she is silent, the bandages now abandoned on her lap as one hand smoothes down the contours of his back and the other gently delves into his short blonde tufts of hair. She feels the shaky rise and fall of his back as if he's the verge of tears and it's in this moments that she wishes could do more for him – _be_ more for him.

"What it's like to what, Naruto-kun?" She coaxes him gently and softly and she feels him shudder against her as he takes in a strained breath before exhaling.

"What it's like to be…lonely."

There is a prevailing silence and a hint of sadness behind her small smile but she continues to soothe him. "Are you lonely, Naruto-kun?"

He shoots away from her, his eyes now wide and apologetic as he frantically shakes his head in denial.

"No, I didn't mean—!"

Her hands settle at the slope of his whiskered cheek, gently caressing it as she gazes into the blue of his eyes. "It's ok, you can tell me how you feel. I-I," the stutter returns with the growing blush on her cheeks but she persists in finishing, "I want us to be honest with each other…"

Comforted by her words, he visibly relaxes but remains silent as he struggles to dislodge the words caught in his throat.

"When I'm out there," he starts, finally finding his voice, "sometimes I feel like…I'm still not as strong as I'm pretending to be..."

She wants to interrupt and add that there's probably no other shinobi on earth on par with his god-like powers – aside from perhaps Uchiha Sasuke – but refrains. She is sure this isn't the strength he's referring to.

Gently, she surveys him and watches him continue to struggle to put into words the real reason for his sudden change in mood. His mouth opens and closes wordlessly, his voice dying in his throat before he finally admits, "Konohamaru went on his first B-rank mission as a genin today and he came back…"

His eyes squeeze shut at the rising memory of his friends' mangled body getting wheeled down the corridors of the Konoha hospital, of the frantic orders issued by his pink-haired teammate and other medics as they desperately pour green chakra into Konohamaru's wounds and he…he is trembling all over. His mind throbs painfully and his limbs shake with a palpable anger that streaks through his veins like liquid fire and he remembers the words of the old pervy sage.

" _It's because we love that we risk to hate."_

"Sakura-chan said Konohamaru should be fine, though," Naruto continues, managing a strained grin as if to brush it off but the feel of his wife's gentle hand caressing his cheek and her pearl eyes boring into his own convinces him to give up on the façade and his smile drops.

"But truthfully…I felt so helpless. I want to protect him," he confesses ever so softly, "I want to protect this village, and my friends, and you and…"

He gently lays a hand over her stomach, a small smile returning to his face, "and the baby."

She nods slowly in agreement, looking down at her stomach and placing both of her hands over his.

"I…understand, Naruto-kun," she admits quietly, her eyes downcast. "Lately I've felt the same thing. I…I want to protect you, and the baby, and all the people precious to me. I want to be a good wife, a good mother and I don't think…I don't think I can."

She whispers the last part and her pearl eyes glisten with unshed tears as Naruto hurriedly gathers her onto his lap, holding her tight.

"Hinata you're an amazing wife!" She chuckles at his attempts to comfort her, the tears escaping and sliding down her face, "and I know you'll be an amazing mom too-ttebayo!"

He thumbs away the tears and she smiles at him, whispering a soft, "thank you, Naruto-kun" as she rests against his chest.

"Naruto-kun," she continues, "being Hokage will certainly open the door to a lot of potential heartache but..."

She pauses and gathers her thoughts, desperate to say the right things to comfort him, to give him just that little bit of strength, "but even so, I know that you can endure it a-and I think all we can do is give our best everyday in order to entrust the future to the next generation." Her grip tightens on his hand, "a-and even in the face of future heartache, even if you falter, Naruto-kun I…I want to always be by your side and I…I hope I will be enough to give you the strength to keep going. That's…" She swallows a lump she had not realized had risen in her throat, "that's my lifelong wish."

He is stunned silent and she fiddles awkwardly with her hands, anxiously wondering if perhaps she'd said the wrong thing – perhaps this was opposite of what he wanted to hear? Perhaps…perhaps…

"N-Naruto-kun?" She wills herself to lift her eyes to meet his as the silence stretches and her worries multiply at his stunned wide-eyed gaze. The first syllable of his name hangs on her lips as she opens her mouth to call out to him again but is silenced by a lone tear cascading down the curve of his cheek.

"Hinata…thank you", he whispers, fully reminded of how strong she was – _for the both of them_ – and he thinks that, no, she is not the rising waves pulling him under but the steady anchor that keeps him ashore; his anchor, his pillar, his north star leading him back home, to her, to his family.

Thank you? He is convinced that those two words were not enough to convey the depth of what she means to him and so instead he opts to show her. He swoops towards her and kisses her once, twice, thrice, four times and soon he is showering her with staccato kisses, desperately bobbing back and forth as he presses his lips against her rose petal lips in broken intervals. Their hands cradle each other's faces tenderly as Naruto punctuates each chaste kiss with a breathless rising crescendo of "I love you", "I love you", "I love you", "I love you". Her sweet caress stuns him; the supple flesh of her lips melds with his and her intoxicating taste overwhelms his senses. He is drunk on her and she is drowning in his embrace, desperate for more of him – _needing so much more_ …

They mutually pull apart and their swooping symphony ends in a crashing coda, their hot breath intermingling in shortened gasps as they press their foreheads together, noses rubbing lovingly. Hinata traces the lines of his whiskers with her fingertips and he in turn gently trails his bandaged fingertips along the column of her neck, pearl orbs locked with the endless sea of his eyes.

"Promise you'll stay by my side?"

His whisper is so soft that she almost doesn't catch it. But she does and this time it's her turn to kiss him, to sear burning promises onto his cool skin. Her soft lips travel from his lips pinked from overzealous kissing, over the lines of his whiskers, to the sharp curve off his jaw, down the column of his trembling throat and over the hill of his bobbing Adam's apple. She does not want to stop but she does and she answers him with more confidence than should be able to fit in her tiny frame.

"Always, Naruto-kun."

When her husband finally settles underneath the duvet covers for the night she pulls away and turns off the lights before pondering over her earlier unfinished journal entry. A desire to finish the entry fills her and she closes the bedroom door behind her and heads back down the corridor and into the kitchen, determined to finish what she had started. She sits down and quietly listens to the soft downpour of fresh rain, her eyes transfixed on her earlier words glaring pointedly at her from the page, ' _Am I strong enough?…Am I wise enough…?"_

They demand an answer and Hinata picks up her pencil to oblige.

' _I still don't know if I can confidently say if I am these things,'_ she writes, the pencil moving fluidly across the page, _'Am I strong, am I wise, am I ready, I honestly don't know. But I know that Naruto-kun and I are happy, just so happy, and I love myself, I love Naruto-kun and we love our baby and our growing family very much and I think…'_

A pause and then she finishes confidently, ' _I think…that's enough."_

She sets down the pencil, closes her journal with a sense of finality and picks it up as she quietly treads back to the bedroom, turning the lights off along the way. She puts her journal away and closes the door behind her before settling under the covers next to her sleeping husband, her eyes drinking in his sleeping form bathed in silver moonlight. His back faces her and her pearl eyes observe the steady rise and fall of his shoulders. The rhythm hypnotizes her and she draws in close, wrapping herself around him.

"Hinata?" Naruto's voice calls out to her in a voice thick with grogginess, and she presses a cool kiss to the back of his neck before coaxing him to go back to sleep. He nods; shifting closer towards her warmth and Hinata cradles him for a few moments before whispering against his neck.

"I love you too, Naruto-kun."

She thinks he is asleep but suddenly feels his large hand envelop hers and their fingers intertwine.

He is warm, he is sturdy, he is home and as the steady metronome of their beating hearts lull her into a deep slumber she thinks: this is love and it is enough.

* * *

~x~

 _I continue to write_

 _Writing of my eternal love for you into the ending of the poem_ _  
_

 _You are the one and only understanding that I want_

~x~

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ _Wow, that ending was…pretty eh. It was hard to write but overall this fic was a lot of fun. Naruhina is very adorable and overall I really wanted to depict a regular couple night talk and show a level of vulnerability for both of them similar to the proud failure speech. I also wanted to show how limitless and infinite Naruto/Hinata's love for each other feels to me. I may have been a bit heavy-handed about that theme, haha._

 _The shipping wars make me rather sad, but I guess this isn't the place to talk about that, but after re-reading the manga (at least 400/700 of it) and watching the Last I was really struck by how poignant naruhina is as a pairing. I never really cared or thought much of the pairing (I always assumed it would happen though) but it was too vanilla for me to get invested into but perhaps now that I'm older, I really see how well laid-out it is and how stable, healthy and beautiful of a relationship they share. Also, wow, I cannot get over that ost, it's honestly magic._

 _But anyway, that's enough gushing from me. Also, I'm aware that the "love becomes hate" line was not Jiraiya, it was Tobi/Obito, but I'm sure he would've said something similar sometime in his life…maybe._

 _Anyway, please read and review! Since this is my first naruhina and honestly I've never read a naruhina before I'm not sure if I got the characterizations right and I feel like the ending was terrible, ugh. I appreciate all constructive feedback!_


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